


All My Soul Within Me

by Klavier



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Haunted Houses, M/M, Mingyu should probably seek therapy after this, Minor Violence, Not Really Character Death, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27030259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klavier/pseuds/Klavier
Summary: Mr. Boo looks at Mingyu’s chest when he talks—a close-up stare like he’s watching Mingyu’s heart pound inside his rib cage. “No photos allowed,” he says.“Yeah, I.” Mingyu wets his lips. “Didn’t take any.”“For your sake, I hope that’s true.”
Relationships: Kim Mingyu/Yoon Jeonghan
Comments: 13
Kudos: 49
Collections: SVT Fear Exchange





	All My Soul Within Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jeanheir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeanheir/gifts).



> Title from The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe.  
> Please tread carefully if gentle horror isn't your cup of tea and let me know if there are any tags I missed! Thank you mods for hosting such a fun exchange!!
> 
> Dear writer, hello!! Your prompts were so great I had trouble choosing, but I hope you like what this one turned into. Happy spooky season!!

NO PHOTOS ALLOWED, says the sign posted on every doorway of the Boo estate.

But Mingyu is here on assignment from his journalism professor, requesting an exposé, and Mingyu can’t expose a tourist trap without  _ pictures _ .

The Boo estate is a sprawling, four-storey mansion just outside the city with an overgrown rose garden and white pillars worn gray by time and neglect. Twice a day, an upbeat young man in traditional hanbok leads a tour of wide-eyed visitors through “haunted rooms” to gawk at “real murder sites” with “supernatural activity” and such.

Bullshit. All of it.

When Mingyu had stumbled on an errant police report about nearby hit-and-runs, he was looking for a story in law enforcement. Not tourism. But a throwaway comment about the neighborhood’s curse led him to the outdated website of a tourist attraction twenty minutes outside of Seoul. 

In the reviews section, a history buff debunked the estate for its gimmicky backstory, claiming that its story would violate dozens of 19th century laws. It caught Mingyu’s interest—maybe there were more lies to bring to light.

Now he stands in front of a three-tiered brick fire stove, snapping a quick photo of the plastic pipes painted to be wood. Fakes. Not even  _ good  _ fakes. Mingyu shoves his phone up his sleeve just in time for the tour guide to turn in his direction.

“And if you’ll follow me into the master bedroom.” Mr. Boo gestures to the next doorway. 

The group of visitors, mostly young Westerners in jeans, moves along. Mr. Boo doesn’t even glance at Mingyu, but Mingyu feels watched anyway. He doesn’t like breaking rules. But he doesn’t like scammers, either.

Mr. Boo continues weaving a tragic romance about the socialite couple who once lived in this house. “The demons grew so strong, legend says, that the husband was subdued in his own mind. He became a haunted shell of his former self. Their marriage simply couldn’t withstand possession from vengeful spirits! Lady Boo ran screaming into the night, never to be seen again.”

Right. Mingyu rolls his eyes.

He manages a few more quick photos. The supposed “door to nowhere” actually opens into plywood that’s a slightly different shade of beige than the walls—fake. The spiderwebs above the bed frame are vaguely metallic—fake, probably from the discount store. He can tell by the shadows that the adjacent sitting room is completely empty. 

Back in the foyer, as Mr. Boo concludes the tour, Mingyu tries to get one last photo. He wants a visual of Mr. Boo’s hanbok to cross-reference with the seasonal haunted maze across the city. The uniforms look so similar it’s uncanny.

He aims for the lower half of Mr. Boo’s body, except his hand slips and he captures his face instead, right as Mr. Boo turns to look  _ directly at Mingyu _ .

“Thank you all for coming,” Mr. Boo says, unsmiling. “And I dearly hope to never see any of you again, lest you be kept here by unfinished business.”

The tourists laugh and trickle outside. Sheepishly Mingyu tries to follow them, but a pressure on his sleeve stops him in the doorway. 

Mr. Boo looks at Mingyu’s chest when he talks—a close-up stare like he’s watching Mingyu’s heart beat inside his rib cage. “No photos allowed,” he says.

“Yeah, I.” Mingyu wets his lips. “Didn’t take any.”

“For your sake, I hope that’s true.”

A strong breeze ruffles Mr. Boo’s hair. In that moment he looks striking and young, with the timeless sort of face you might see in black and white photographs or in Minhwa paintings with larger-than-life tigers curving around trees.

Mingyu feels a twinge of regret for breaking the rules. He’s a good boy at heart. Mr. Boo doesn’t seem the type to run a massive tourist scam, but… no. Stick to your guns, Mingyu. Stay resolute.

“Thank you.” Mingyu gently shakes the weight off his sleeve.

The whole interaction lasts maybe thirty seconds, but Mingyu feels the heavy gaze of Mr. Boo long after he exits the estate. It’s shocking to walk outside and be reminded that Seoul still exists—he was deeply focused on scanning the nooks and crannies of the house. He feels like he just emerged from a dark movie theater and has to blink at the gray, cloudy sky for several dumb seconds.

Mingyu shivers all the way to his car. A cool November breeze bites at the exposed skin of his neck and ankles. In the driver’s seat, he cranks the heater and pauses to thumb through the photos he managed to steal: a fog machine tucked behind an open door, a fake anthill, three framed portraits that were clearly photoshopped to be sepia-colored. How cheap.

And… the photo of Mr. Boo’s hanbok.

Except that one is empty.

Mingyu frowns. He’s got the right photo. The background—the double doors leading into the dining hall—is correct. All the tourists are in the right place. But the space where Mr. Boo should be standing and staring at Mingyu’s camera is simply… nothing. No shadow, no figure. Like he wasn’t even there.

How weird. Maybe it’s a lens flare? He swipes through the photos again. Nothing else is strange. 

NO PHOTOS ALLOWED, Mingyu remembers from the sign. He tosses his phone on the passenger seat and starts the car. As he’s pulling out of the parking lot, he glances back for one more glimpse of the estate, and his blood runs cold.

Mr. Boo is standing on the front steps staring directly at Mingyu as he drives away.

What the fuck? Now he’s a little weirded out. Mingyu merges onto the highway quickly and doesn’t breathe easier until the lights of the city proper are surrounding him once more. Illegal photography isn’t that big of a deal… right? What if the estate presses charges? They don’t have evidence but is there enough suspicion for a warrant?

Mingyu checks his rearview mirror compulsively, half-convinced that he’s being followed the whole way home. A stress headache throbs behind his eyes.

“Oh, you’re here,” he says with relief upon opening the front door.

Jeonghan is liquidizing on the bed, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, his laptop open on his chest and a slow hand moving over the trackpad. He’s gorgeous. Even in the flickering blue light from the screen, even after a day of lazing around in pajamas.

He looks up and it’s like life is breathed back into his body. Jeonghan discards the laptop and sits up straight. “Of course I’m here,” he says impishly. “No class for me, remember?”

Mingyu answers by faceplanting into his chest. “Hold me,” he mumbles into Jeonghan’s sweater.

“Awh, bad day?”

“It was just… weird.” Mingyu arranges himself more comfortably, tucked into Jeonghan’s side. His body warmth thaws the last of Mingyu’s irrational fear, but does nothing for the headache. “I spooked myself at the fake haunted house.”

Jeonghan cards his hand through Mingyu’s hair. They’ve only lived together since the start of senior year, four months ago, but this already feels familiar. He lets his eyes go glassy on Jeonghan’s face, then slide closed. He could nap like this.

“I see.” Jeonghan’s voice drops into flippancy. He’s the type to enjoy orchestrating Mingyu’s public embarrassments, so whenever someone else gets there first, he feels jilted  _ and _ protective. “Which one did you visit? This is for the genre elective, right?”

“Yeah. Some place called the Boo estate in Namyangju.”

“What.” Jeonghan sits up. His hand falls from Mingyu’s hair. “Are you serious?”

Mingyu’s eyes fly open. “Do you know it?”

“I didn’t know they turned it into a public exhibit. That’s my—that’s near my grandfather’s house.”

He doesn’t settle back against the pillows. Jeonghan is usually slow to anger but this builds in him quickly, his eyes darting over the duvet like he’s imagining a scene invisible to Mingyu, his jaw locked.

“That’s wrong,” he mumbles. “No one should go there, it’s a historical landmark.”

A pulse of pain radiates from the center of Mingyu’s forehead. He closes his eyes again, this time from discomfort. “I’ll take you if you want to go back,” he mumbles, one hand scrabbling for the comfortable dip in Jeonghan’s ribcage to lure him back to cuddling. “It’s not haunted, though.”

His hand meets nothing. Mingyu cracks open one eye. The bed is empty, Jeonghan gone.

“Jeonghan?” Mingyu sits up, drawing a deep breath to dispel the headache dizziness. “What…”

The studio apartment is empty. The kitchen, undisturbed. The bathroom door hangs open to lemon-scented darkness. That’s the only place Jeonghan could have disappeared to—unless he’s crouched in the closet—so Mingyu ignores his aches and gets out of bed to check the bathroom.

He flicks on the light. The door creaks open.

Jeonghan is standing in front of the sink and staring at himself in the mirror. His body is a study in stillness, his clothes rumpled and imperfectly captured. His lips are parted. There is a quiet wrongness to this visual, something unknown which makes Mingyu hesitate with his hand outstretched for a long time. He feels like he’s looking at an inanimate photograph. Or a dead thing posing as his boyfriend.

Because Jeonghan isn’t moving. Not even to breathe.

Mingyu freaks out. He grabs Jeonghan’s shoulder and shakes violently. “Hey. Hey, Jeonghan.”

“Um, what the fuck,” is Jeonghan’s reply, and suddenly there’s a toothbrush in his hand and bubbles of white foam at the corner of his mouth. “Are you okay?”

“Why were you just—”  _ standing _ , he wants to say, but that’s not what Jeonghan was doing. He was looking at himself. “What are you doing?”

“Brushing my teeth, you weirdo.”

“No, you weren’t doing that a second ago.”

Jeonghan gives him a concerned look. His eyebrows bunch together like he’s thinking. After he spits in the sink and wipes his mouth, he says, “I think the headache is getting to you, baby.”

_ How do you know my head hurts?  _

But maybe Jeonghan is right. This is too weird. Mingyu must be confused. He probably blinked and missed Jeonghan grab the toothbrush from the drawer, or maybe he blacked out for a second. As if his body is listening, the ache in his skull begins to spread downwards like sand in an hourglass, slipping over his spine. Every inhale feels like it presses against a sore muscle. 

He feels like shit.

“Okay,” Mingyu mumbles, rubbing his face. “Yeah. Maybe I should just knock out early.”

What a weird day. Soonyoung would blame the full moon. He shuffles out of the bathroom and gets dressed. Barely 8pm but he’s tired enough to sleep through the night.

Mingyu half-heartedly eats cold leftovers of rice and grilled pork. Jeonghan watches him the way a parent might watch their sick toddler. He makes hot green tea, he fetches an aspirin, he bundles Mingyu in a blanket while he sits at the table.

Their relationship has never been equally balanced—Jeonghan holds the reins and they both like it that way—but this level of doting is above and beyond. Mingyu blushes. He ducks his head, embarrassed and pleased.

“It’s fine, I’m okay.” Mingyu waves away a second cup of tea. The headache persists, but he feels like he can relax enough to sleep. “Did you finish the lab write-up?”

“Not yet. I’ll do it tonight after I call my sister.” Jeonghan leans his elbow on the table.

“Okayyyy.” The word expands into a yawn. “I’m gonna head to bed, then.”

“Let me tuck you in.”

Mingyu giggles and bats away Jeonghan’s intrusive hands. He can put himself to bed, for fuck’s sake. But he allows Jeonghan to push him onto the sheets, as he’s done innumerable times in a different context, and kiss him. Slow and steady.

Through the open window, a nightjar shrieks. The smell of pork clings to the walls. Caged in by Jeonghan’s arms, Mingyu tries to sink into this familiar embrace and forget his woes. Jeonghan’s mouth is warm and all-consuming. He nips at Mingyu’s lower lip and Mingyu’s breath hitches in his throat. He slides a hand around the back of Jeonghan’s neck—

Only to feel that his skin is exceptionally cold. 

It’s not enough to startle Mingyu out of the kiss, but he  _ notices _ . Usually when Jeonghan kisses him the whole world falls away. Not this time. He still feels like…

Like something’s wrong.

When Jeonghan breaks the kiss and leans back, his face is simply fond. Eyes half-lidded, he swipes a tongue over his shiny mouth and says, “Sleep well, baby.”

Mingyu reaches out to grab Jeonghan’s hand, half wanting him closer and half suspicious that his skin will still feel like ice, but Jeonghan moves back before he can. It would be dumb and needy to ask Jeonghan to come closer. Mingyu hates asking extra from people—especially Jeonghan, who gives him so much.

So he tucks himself into the sheets and rolls to face the wall. He’s probably imagining things, anyway.

“Goodnight,” Mingyu mumbles.

Jeonghan makes a wet kissy noise back at him. The apartment falls into a well-worn peace, with a cool breeze from the window and the shuffling sounds of Jeonghan moving around the room. Eventually his voice joins the background noise, quiet and comforting, as he chats with his sister.

Pain doesn’t keep Mingyu awake. He falls asleep quickly.

That’s his second mistake. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


When Mingyu wakes, the room is nightmare-dark and silent. He thinks,  _ I have to go back _ .

It’s a weird, obtrusive thought. It happens again: _ I have to go back. _

On autopilot, groggy and sticky from sleep, Mingyu climbs out of bed. The floor is freezing beneath his feet, a shock that makes him hesitate. Blue moonlight slices across the blankets, the table, the far wall. The bed is empty. Mingyu draws a deep breath. Where’s Jeonghan?

“I have to go back,” he whispers, then claps a hand over his mouth. He didn’t mean to say that.

What the fuck? Mingyu’s heart goes haywire. What’s wrong with him? Is he having some sort of episode? He turns back to the bed, palm against his mouth like a stopper, but he can feel his lips move outside of his command. The same sentence, again.

He runs to the bathroom. Jeonghan isn’t there. Not in the kitchen, not crouching in the closet. Mingyu turns on all the lights, almost swallowing his own fist from how desperately he’s trying to choke down the foreign words taking residence in his mouth.

Jeonghan’s keys are still hanging from the puppy magnet on the fridge. Mingyu goes to check and accidentally rips it down. Glass shatters over the tile. Fuck, he’ll have to explain that in the morning. It was a gift from Jeonghan’s sister after the first time she met Mingyu.

He’s covered in a cold sweat by the time he’s finished checking every possible option. Jeonghan is gone. Mingyu is having… some sort of breakdown. 

_ I have to go back _ .

“Fine!” Mingyu explodes, dropping the hand from his sore jaw. “I’m going back. I’m going.”

This likely isn’t real. Maybe it’s a dream, maybe he’s blacking out and seeing things like earlier, maybe… he doesn’t know. But Mingyu will play along with the delusion until he gets some answers. That’s what a good journalist would do, he tells himself. Find the truth.

The impulse to speak dissipates. His mouth goes still, back under his control.

Trembling, Mingyu pulls on jeans and a sweater. It’s—he doesn’t even know what time it is, his phone is dead. Of course. Late enough that the moon is bobbing lower in the sky, swollen and full, casting an eye over Mingyu as he hurries to his car in the cold November air.

It’s the witching hour, as they say.

Mingyu drives back to the Boo estate.

It looks exactly the same. He rolls to a stop with both headlights shining directly on the front windows, into an inscrutable gray that reflects shadows of thorny rose bushes below. Cavernous shadows mark the edge of the property. The house is dull and unthreatening.

Everything feels real. Looks real. His car still smells like fried chicken from three nights back. He has goosebumps all the way down both arms. 

“I’m here,” Mingyu mumbles, to whatever part of his monkey brain is in control right now. “Okay. This is real, I came back, and now I’m going home.”

He puts the car in reverse, but as soon as he does so, a splitting pain cracks down the back of his neck. He feels like a whipped dog. Mingyu jerks the car back into park, gasping. Tentatively he tries again—with the same aching result. 

Okay, so he’s not going home.

Wiping away startled tears, Mingyu takes stock of himself as he climbs out of the car. Keys, wallet, dead phone. Unwashed jeans. Hoodie that should’ve been a thicker jacket, he thinks, watching his breath billow into steam.

Mingyu stands with his hands in his pockets, mad-dogging the house, for a long time. He shivers. No, he’s vibrating down to the bones. Tension builds in his joints. He feels like—like he’ll explode into individual cells if he doesn’t—

Mingyu takes a step forward. His body relaxes.

He’s being forced to enter the house. Compelled. A strangled, wet sigh is torn from his throat. He might start crying if this doesn’t end soon.

But Mingyu obeys. That’s what he’s always been good at, anyways. Jeonghan would know.

He approaches the front door with the intention to knock, but it’s already propped open. It swings wide with a gentle push. The foyer looks the same, just darker—fake spiderwebs, a welcome desk, a cheap chandelier throwing odd shapes of light on the grand staircase.

“Hello?” Mingyu calls. “Mr. Boo?”

Of course no one is here. Except him, and he might be arrested for trespassing at this point.

Mingyu takes a few steps inside. Wooden floorboards creak and groan. A breeze rattles the chandelier, so there must be an open window somewhere, though the air is musty and still. 

What is he doing here? There must be a reason. Something he needs to see. Mingyu quietly continues forward, clenching both hands into fists so they won’t shake, through the arched passageway into the dining room.

There is a man at the table. 

Mingyu freezes. “Mr. Boo?”

Mr. Boo sits perfectly still at the head of the table, his eyes resting blankly on the opposite wall, still dressed in his cheap hanbok. He doesn’t acknowledge Mingyu.

“Excuse me,” Mingyu tries again, stepping closer, feeling desperate. “Sorry, I don’t really know why I—“

Mr. Boo turns and opens his mouth. Something sharp extends from between his lips—a glossy black beak like that of a raven. Mingyu’s stomach flips.

The beak opens. Piercing bird-chatter assaults the room while Mr. Boo remains perfectly still. Mingyu turns and bolts the opposite direction, straight through the foyer and up the grand staircase, blank with terror.

Trembling, Mingyu slams a door and slides to his knees in what he recognizes as the master bedroom. Cawing echoes fade. He tries to catch his breath. Holy  _ fuck _ . What did he just see? Was that a trick of the light?

“This isn’t real,” he whispers. “This can’t be real.”

Mingyu pinches his forearm for good measure. He leaves an angry red mark but doesn’t wake up. He wraps both arms around his knees, wishing Jeonghan were here to tell him what to do, because he has no idea what to do.

The only way out is through the front door. But if he goes back downstairs, that  _ thing  _ will be waiting at the table…

Mingyu forces himself up and pushes the curtains away from the window. Funny, the panes must be boarded up, because they show nothing but cracked glass and darkness. Not a hint of the moon. 

In the reflection, he sees the pale shadow of his own face, and something even paler moving behind him.

Mingyu whips around. There’s a man with no skin—no, not a man, more like a sketch of one, all sharp neon lines and transparency—Mingyu can see every one of his veins and not a single organ. The face is clear and unblemished. The man looks exactly like Soonyoung. He’s floating a meter off the ground.

Mingyu screams.

“No no no,” he whispers, throat raw, covering his face with both hands. “Not real. Wake up.”

“I’m real,” the thing that looks like Soonyoung’s body says. “Mingyu, it’s me. Dick. Look at me.”

The words are so reminiscent of the real Soonyoung that they slice through the red alert panic in Mingyu’s head. He takes a deep breath and narrowly stops himself from hyperventilating. He peeks out between two fingers.

“What are you?” Mingyu asks. His voice cracks. “How do you look like my best friend?”

“Because it’s me. I’ve got a message for you.”

“That’s not possible. I got coffee with Soonyoung yesterday, he doesn’t—he’s not—“ Mingyu tries not to look directly at the floating veins. They pulse with an odd blue light, reminiscent of a heartbeat. Nausea rises hot in his throat.

Soonyoung’s not dead.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re freaking out, but just listen. I think we’ve grown apart recently.” Soonyoung blinks and the whole body flickers like a light show. “But you haven’t gotten the hint and I don’t know how to tell you nicely, so—we’re not friends anymore.”

A shiv of fear enters Mingyu’s chest. Even though he doesn’t want to hear another word, he says, “What?”

“Dude, your brain is like a bunch of tapioca pearls going hard,” Soonyoung sighs. “Honestly, it’s annoying. We’re not kids anymore. Grow up.”

If there is any truth to this delusion, it’s here. Mingyu has been dreading a real conversation like this for weeks. Months. Waiting for the day Soonyoung tires of Mingyu’s childish attitude, his stubbornness, his motormouth. 

Hearing a casual dismissal from his best friend—even when he knows it’s fake—is crushing. Demoralizing. Mingyu wants to sink into the ground.

“I don’t know what the fuck is happening,” he whispers. “But you’re  _ not Soonyoung _ .”

Soonyoung gives him a very uncomfortable smile. “Yeah, whatever. We still have to see each other sometimes, our moms are friends. Let’s pretend like nothing happened and just go our separate ways.”

“No.” Mingyu clenches both hands into fists. “Shut up.”

Shaking, Mingyu side-steps the floating body and sprints out of the room. He flies down the hallway and through a door he doesn’t recognize, into what must be an old washroom which never got refurbished. A giant stone basin sits in the corner. Mold climbs along the ceiling.

Mingyu slams the door shut behind him but it’s no use—Soonyoung’s body phases through the far wall and lingers there, eyes scanning the basin.

Fuck. He’s being followed.

“Leave me alone,” Mingyu hisses.

“Chill, I’m not in your space. Let’s be civil about this.”

A rat scuttles out from beneath the basin and zig-zags toward a gaping hole in the corner. Mingyu jerks his foot back, startled. The flickering light from Soonyoung’s body makes the room feel claustrophobic. “What do you want?”

Soonyoung shrugs. His veins make a quiet squishing noise. “I’m just trying to level with you. Get some honesty. Some transparency. Haha, get it, transparency?”

This apparition is way more annoying than the real Soonyoung, at least. Mingyu ignores him and strides over to the window. He needs to escape.

Same problem here: boarded-up glass, no way out. He gladly would’ve jumped from the second storey, were there an option. But he’s truly stuck.

He shivers. From this angle, he can see into the bottom of the basin, where a finger of dingy water sits stagnantly. Two oddly-shaped indentations in the surface draw his attention. Mingyu, against his better judgement, leans over the edge for a closer look.

Distantly he hears Soonyoung say, “Oh, you don’t wanna do that, man.”

Suddenly Mingyu’s falling. 

He screams. The water rises up to meet him, then boomerangs backward, stretching into the corners of the room. Mingyu’s sense of depth perception goes out the fucking window. Is he getting smaller, or is the basin getting bigger?

He falls until his lungs run out of air and the pressure glues his eyes shut. For the first time in his life, he thinks he might die. What happens to men who die in dreams?

When everything stops, there’s no collision. Mingyu feels a swooping dizziness, then nothing. Like his consciousness simply fell back into his body. Tentatively he opens his eyes, shaking, to find himself in the fetal position on the floor of the room.

Two men are now sitting up in the basin. At least—they look like men, but they’re covered in mud and completely unrecognizable until one turns to the other and says, “Who invited Mingyu?”

“Minghao?” Mingyu mumbles, his joints still locked with terror. “What…”

The second muddied face giggles. That smile—those teeth—Mingyu would know anywhere. His heart drops.

“He’s not that bad,” mud-Seokmin says to mud-Minghao. “You just hate him out of spite.”

“Of course I do. He thinks he’s a god.”

“Well,” Seokmin hedges. “I mean. Sometimes? But look, he’s so sad sitting on the floor like that. I pity him. Let’s be the bigger people.”

Seokmin rises to his full height in the tub. His body is a pillar of mud, cylindrical where his torso and legs should be, a grotesque reimagining of a person. The noises he makes while moving are wet and horrific. Mingyu instinctually scoots away.

“Hi, Mingyu.” A splash of muddy water extends onto the floor in Mingyu’s direction. Is that meant to be a handshake? “Good to see you.”

He knows that tone of voice. It’s how Seokmin speaks to coworkers he hates, customers who are rude, dog owners who use muzzles. Polite as a facade for disgust.

“Uh-huh,” Mingyu says.

His brain is officially offline. This is far too much to process—first his oldest friend, now his two college buddies? What the fuck kind of drug is he on right now? 

Minghao repeats Seokmin’s grand ascension. His mud-body looks much the same, with a few extra tufts of grass around the area his ankles should be.

“I’m not saying we have to talk shit about him,” Minghao says, clearly still speaking to Seokmin. “I know you guys used to be friends. But I never liked him, and I’m sick of pretending. Why does he spam the groupchat all day?”

“He doesn’t have any other friends. Seriously, I feel bad.”

Mingyu sighs. This pain is older, more familiar. He’s always worried that Seokmin and Minghao are simply putting up with him. Ever since he introduced them to each other, he’s been playing catch up. If they want to leave him behind—fine. But he won’t go quietly. 

“Shut up,” he tells them. “I don’t believe you.”

“See?” Minghao sneers. The proportions of his face warp and twist as the mud realigns. “So rude.”

“Shut up! Minghao would never say that!”

“Not to your face.”

Mingyu balls his hands into fists. Rage fills him like a pot boiling over, throwing out sour steam. He teeters to his feet and zeroes in on the jagged corner where the rat disappeared. He walks over and rips out a long wooden board.

Seokmin and Minghao start furiously whispering. Soonyoung laughs. Mingyu feels violently unhinged, sweat beading across his brow, but his hands are steady. 

“Maybe you were right,” Seokmin murmurs. “He’s kinda toxic.”

“Stop lying!” Mingyu charges, wielding the hunk of wood like a baseball bat. “You’re not even real, just—shut—up!”

He whacks the first mud body hard. Gritty dirt and sludge splatter the walls like blood. Seokmin wails. Mingyu doesn’t hesitate, striking again, this time where Minghao’s chest ought to be. A single-minded intensity takes over—he wants these monsters  _ eliminated _ . He wants them dust. 

He’s never been a violent person. He shoos moths out the window, feeds the stray cats sometimes. Jeonghan had to take action once and shove a man who wouldn’t get his hands off Mingyu in a bar. If Jeonghan could see him now...

Mingyu hacks away until Minghao and Seokmin are no more than stumps of deflating dirt. Their faces gasp for respite. Minghao’s delicate mouth is in the shape of a twist tie. Their screams are so haunting, Mingyu hardly hears it when the wood hits ground with a clatter.

“I’m tired of this,” he says, his own voice emerging thick and foreign. Tired is an understatement. His legs are jelly. “I’m done. I’m fucking leaving.”

As he turns to exit the room, he hears Seokmin whimper. “Oh, thank god.”

“I told you so,” Minghao hisses. “God, that hurt. What a bastard.”

Mingyu feels tears sting at the corners of his eyes. How stupid. Crying over a dumb hallucination. Getting so angry he loses himself. He wipes his face, sniffles, and stumbles blearily down the dim hallway. Soonyoung floats silently behind him. 

What did Mr. Boo say earlier, about the original owners of this estate?  _ Possession. Vengeful spirits. Subdued in his own mind _ . 

Maybe this isn’t a dream. Maybe Mingyu is losing control of his mind and body, a puppet starring in a horror show. He shouldn’t have taken those photos. He shouldn’t have visited the estate at all.

At the top of the stairs, Mingyu rests a hand on the peeling bannister and peaks downstairs for Mr. Boo. He’s less afraid of whatever ungodly creature lives in that man’s body. He’s seen worse now. The light shifts and he turns to watch Soonyoung grin before blinking out of existence.

A voice that sounds eerily similar to his ex, Jihoon, whispers in Mingyu’s ear, “You will never amount to anything worthwhile.”

Mingyu jumps away. Breath tickles at his other ear as the Jihoon-voice continues. “You’ve got such a sexy body, and for what? You don’t know how to use it. Couldn’t even kiss me right.”

This time the voice cuts into a sharp buzz. Mingyu bats at the empty space near his ear and feels the frail body of a mosquito hit his knuckle and fly away. Gross. Adrenaline ebbs, replaced by despair and resignation. 

“Please stop,” Mingyu says between gritted teeth. 

Slander from his friends—he can understand. But Jihoon dumped  _ him _ , years ago, with no explanation. Mingyu would rather eat sand than return to the goblin hole of self-pity that Jihoon sent him to. 

He takes the stairs two at a time, which is why he doesn’t see the missing step.

Mingyu’s foot goes clean through the space and he lurches forward into an ungraceful slump. Pain shoots up his leg. If he had any residual hope about this being a dream, it disappears. He’s never felt pain like this within his own subconscious before.

He draws a deep, shuddering breath. Don’t cry, Kim Mingyu. A gentle buzz warns him of Jihoon’s presence.

“I regret the years I wasted with you,” Jihoon whispers. “You held me back and I wish we’d never met.”

“Please, please,” Mingyu whispers. “Stop. Don’t.”

He yanks his foot out of the hollow. His ankle aches white-hot and the skin is already swollen. Luckily, it holds weight, so he limps with staccato steps downstairs. So close to the front door… if only he can make it to the doorknob…

Another buzz. “You’re the most self-absorbed piece of—“

Mingyu turns and claps his hands together. A sticky black goo erupts between his palms. Mingyu desperately wipes his hands on his jeans as the carcass of a giant mosquito flops onto the hardwood floor.

If he looks closer, there might be a face there. So he doesn’t look.

Mingyu forges ahead to the front door. He doesn’t turn his head toward the dining room, but he feels Mr. Boo’s presence like the solemn weight of a tombstone, the way you can sometimes sense when dead things are nearby.

He wraps his hand around the doorknob.

“Mingyu?” A shaky voice calls. “What are you doing here?”

The cadence, the tone. Mingyu feels those words in his whole body. His breath hitches. Don’t look. Don’t turn back. It’s not real, it’s not him…

“Oh, god,” Jeonghan continues, and his words are ragged half-sobs. “Oh, no, baby, why are you here?”

Mingyu feels his resolve fissure. He can’t walk away from that voice in any form, he isn’t strong enough. But this might break him. He resigns himself to seeing a monstrous version of the man he loves and turns over one shoulder.

Below the chandelier in the center of the foyer, in a shaft of moonlight from the front windows, is Jeonghan. An awfully pale and thin version of him—but undoubtedly him, human and not visibly demonized.

Jeonghan shivers. He’s hunched over in his favorite plaid sweatpants and one of Mingyu’s oversized sweaters, loose around the collar. His hair hangs down, a little greasy, blackening at the roots. Mingyu takes a half-step toward him and hesitates.

They stare at each other and don’t speak for a moment. Wind from far-off places whispers through the eaves.

Mingyu processes his words.  _ Why are you here? _

“Aren’t you gonna insult me?” Mingyu asks. 

Jeonghan’s face screws up. “What? No.” He sways forward like he can’t help it, moves closer. “I missed you.”

He throws his arms around Mingyu. Alarm bells start ringing in Mingyu’s head—none of the other apparitions tried to  _ touch _ him. The embrace is colder, stiffer than he knows Jeonghan to be. He recoils.

Jeonghan’s face crumples so fast that Mingyu has to bite back an apology. This hurts worse than the verbal abuse he just endured.

“I don’t understand,” Mingyu says. His ankle twinges when he shuffles back towards the door. “What do you want?”

“Wait,” Jeonghan demands. “Let me just… look at you. It’s been so long.”

Muscle memory. Mingyu obeys.

This Jeonghan is much skinnier than the real Jeonghan. His wrists look like they might snap if he grips anything with force. Which is ironic, because there are bruises on Mingyu’s thighs _ right now _ from those fingers.

Gently he raises a hand to cup Mingyu’s cheek. His eyes glitter with an unnatural milky light. “Are you dead, too?”

“No.”

Jeonghan’s face goes through a series of rapid microexpressions. His elegant mouth tightens, his jaw locks. “Are you real?”

“ _ Yes _ , I’m real.”

“How did you get here?”

This line of questioning is so different from what he’s just experienced, Mingyu has whiplash. His eyes dart around the foyer, lingering in shadows beyond the moonlight, afraid this is only a distraction before more torture. “I drove,” he says simply. “Why? Can I leave now? Did I pass whatever sanity test—”

A loud crash upstairs interrupts him. Mingyu freezes, eyes wild on the staircase. Jeonghan startles and ducks behind Mingyu’s shoulders, latching onto his forearm for dear life. Every bone in his hand presses into Mingyu’s skin like a carved block of ice. 

Jeonghan leans up to whisper in his ear, breath cool on his neck. “They’re watching us.”

“Who’s  _ they _ ?” Mingyu whispers back.

“Listen to me.” Jeonghan slides his hand down to the bend of Mingyu’s waist, possessive. “This is not a dream. I’ve been stuck here since I died, you have to help me.”

The words roll off his lips so casually,  _ since I died _ , that Mingyu’s breath catches. How reflective of Jeonghan’s ingrained confidence. How real.

This isn’t fair. He can’t think about losing Jeonghan like that, not for a second. He spins around so they’re face-to-face, putting his back towards the staircase with great risk, and lays his hand over Jeonghan’s. 

“You’re not dead. This is some fucked-up hallucination or whatever. The real Jeonghan is—” Well, Mingyu has no clue. He hesitates, hoping the apparition won’t catch his lie. “Asleep in my bed right now.”

Jeonghan’s face stretches long with horror. “What? Mingyu, I was in an accident three weeks ago. You were there.”

“No, you weren’t.” Mingyu rips Jeonghan’s hands away and steps back. “Stop.”

Here come the lies, messing with his head again. This is worse than if Jeonghan said he didn’t love Mingyu—that would be an easy untruth to debunk. Death is much crueler.

“You were there,” Jeonghan repeats with feeling. “Holding my hand on the road. That’s the last thing I remember before this.”

Light shifts and cools. Mingyu glances up to see a line of darkness sliding across the front windows as if they’re being boarded up in real time, from the outside. Is he about to get stuck? He panics. Shouldering past Jeonghan, he strides toward the door. He needs to get back to the real Jeonghan.

Jeonghan raises his voice. “Wait! Don’t—please believe me, baby, don’t leave me here.  _ That’s not my body _ —”

Mingyu’s vision blurs with tears. He knows he needs to leave but he’s crying by the time he reaches the doorknob. Jeonghan’s voice crescendos into a wail. 

Mingyu furiously wipes his face and wrenches open the door to searing, buttery light. Momentum carries him forward. With a gasp, he trips forward right into the heart of lightness. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Mingyu surges out of bed.

A hand scrabbles for his chest, reaching for his heartbeat to prove that he’s alive. The apartment is golden and warm, lit by early morning sun. It smells of vanilla bean coffee.

Mingyu leans forward with his head in shaking hands until he can calm himself, sucking up deep breaths of coffee-and-laundry smell, centering himself in his body. He shifts his weight and feels the hard edge of his phone dig into his hip. It’s fully charged with a message from Soonyoung about an upcoming happy hour at their favorite barbecue spot.

Last night was just a dream. Of course.

But… everything had felt so real. Mingyu shoves back the sheets to inspect his injured ankle. Good as new, not a hint of redness or swelling.

“Morning,” Jeonghan calls. He’s on the couch, his hair in a low ponytail. He sits up, displacing the book in his lap, when he sees Mingyu’s face. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just a nightmare.” Mingyu curls into the comfortable groove of the mattress. He remembers flashes of the people—creatures—he’d encountered. “God, it was horrible.”

Jeonghan gets up and joins Mingyu in bed. He brings his mug and holds it out wordlessly. There are pillow creases on his neck and sheer fingerprints on his glasses. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Jeonghan asks.

The sight of him, whole and unhurt, brings a lump to Mingyu’s throat. He can still hear the shrill screams of dream-Jeonghan. Mingyu shakes his head and gratefully sips the coffee, letting it scald his tongue before he sets it on the side table and tackles Jeonghan backwards.

Jeonghan is giggling before he hits the pillow. “You’re heavy,” he complains when they settle, chest-to-chest. When Mingyu tries to slide off, Jeonghan grips his hair. “No, stay.”

So Mingyu goes lax. His bones turn to water. As his eyes flutter closed, Jeonghan’s hand scratches at the nape of his neck. He enjoys this, lets the moment stretch longer than it should, long enough that he drifts in his own mind. Last night’s fear feels far away.

“You didn’t leave the apartment in the middle of the night, right?” Mingyu mumbles into Jeonghan’s collarbone.

“No,” Jeonghan’s voice is teasing. “What, your nightmare was about me sneaking around with someone else?”

He doesn’t have the heart to explain. “Basically.”

Jeonghan makes a  _ tsk  _ noise. “I wouldn’t. No one else makes me pancakes in bed.”

“Mmm. That sounds like a request.”

“Does it?” Jeonghan presses his mouth to the crown of Mingyu’s head. “Well, if you’re offering.”

Of course he is. Always. Mingyu rolls away and jams both feet into Jeonghan’s fluffy house slippers. His ankles hang off the back, but his toes are warm. 

“Chocolate chips?”

Jeonghan smiles, sweet as sin. “Yes please.”

Mingyu is such a fool for this man. He can’t fight off the fond, indulgent smile as he ambles into the kitchen and reaches for the box mix, the half-eaten bag of chocolate chips, the fridge for eggs—

He freezes with one foot in the air and loses his balance. An elbow hits the counter hard.

There on the floor are the shattered remains of the puppy magnet that Mingyu knocked down last night, before his mad dash to the car. He stares at the colorful glass shards for a long time. A hot prickle of fear races down his spine as he turns to Jeonghan, who’s scrolling idly through his phone.

“When did this happen?” Mingyu asks, arm like an arrow at the mess.

Jeonghan’s eyes hardly flick up. “I don’t know, I saw it this morning. I was going to ask you.”

“No idea,” Mingyu says faintly.

He arranges the ingredients on the counter. Heart hammering, but not wanting to seem suspicious in front of Jeonghan who can interpret his every facial expression, Mingyu nabs his own phone from the bed and stands casually in the kitchen. There’s sun in his eyes. He blinks, rolls out the tremors in his wrist, and opens his photo album.

The photos from the Boo estate are gone. Not a single one remains—not the fake spiderwebs, not the peeling paint, not even the mysterious empty space where Mr. Boo should be.

  
  


As if Mingyu had never visited the estate at all.


End file.
